What is meant by “the Triple
Existence”? This is no mere figure
of speech. Stand anywhere in the outdoors and report what you see.

You see, first,
the world of material being. You see the earth beneath you and the skies
above. The next thing to attract your attention may be
signs of life. Depending upon where you stand, there may be trees, weeds,
grass, and perhaps a few small animals running around. There may be other
people. This is the second type of being: living creatures. The third
type would
be
what
a particular
life form, Homo sapiens, has produced. This would be the world created
by human thought. If you are standing near a city street, you would see
buildings, cement pavement, stop signs, traffic lights, and other objects
that would not be there unless some thinking persons had designed and
created them.

It may take a shift of consciousness
to put these three types of existence together in the same picture:
(1) They all exist physically. (2) Living
creatures,
including ourselves, exist during a finite period of time defined by
an organism’s life cycle. (3) Thought comes to exist physically
when it is infused in a material object. What we call technology is
a process
of building and using machines to serve our various purposes. Civilized
peoples see its products everywhere.

So take a deep breath and contemplate
the fact that the world in which we live consists of three quite different
types of being that, in combination,
comprise our own realm of existence.

Now contemplate another amazing fact.
Physical being exists throughout the cosmos. It exists in the atoms and
molecules of hydrogen and the other
chemical elements. This existence extends to planet earth. So far as
we know, however, earth is the only place that supports the other two
types
of being.

So far as we know, there is no life
anywhere else in the universe. Living creatures do not exist in
stars or even on other planets or
moons
in the solar system. And since Homo sapiens is a species of life, thought
does not exist in places beyond that thin layer of crust on the earth’s
surface. There are no intelligently produced objects on the moon or on
planets or stars other than those which we human beings have sent. There
is only raw physical existence in those other places. Its arrangement
is governed by the laws of physics and chemistry.

You can be aware of the unique
situation that we enjoy as a human beings just by thinking about it for
a moment. Do that and see what other thoughts
come to mind. This will help you become mindful of who and where
you are.

I realize, of course, that humanity
is fascinated by the idea that life may also exist in other parts of
the universe. We are sending
out radio
signals to see if there is any intelligent response. Perhaps extraterrestrials
or space aliens have already visited our planet. Maybe the U.S. government
knows about this and is keeping it a secret. I take no stance on such
questions but merely stick with what is indisputably known.

Back to the Triple Existence.
You have perceived and contemplated the nature of the world around you,
seeing that it exists in three distinctly different
kinds of being. This world is a composite of matter, life, and thought.
Now recognize that each of these beings originated at a particular time.
Matter came first, then life, and finally thought.

Matter first appeared
when the universe was created in the Big Bang. Life appeared on earth
ten billion years later, first in the form of simple
prokaryotic cells and later in eukaryotic cells. Thought appeared in
the consciousness of human beings and, as physical objects, when civilized
peoples began
to build
things.
This process intensified during the Renaissance, five hundred years ago.

A
century ago, scientists became aware of the tripartite nature of our
physical environment. The names given to its separate parts were the “geosphere”, “biosphere”,
and “noosphere”. An Austrian geologist, Edward Suess, first
used the word “biosphere” in a book written about the Alps
that was published in 1875; it was that thin sliver of territory on the
earth’s surface where living creatures dwelled. A Russian
geologist and cosmologist, Vladimir Vernadsky popularized this concept
in the third decade of the 20th century. (See Vernadsky.)
Together with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Vernadsky also developed the
concept of a realm
of human thinking, called the noosphere.

It was important to recognize how
these three realms of existence worked together. Geology, the study
of earth,
begins with chemical processes but continues
with the effect that life has on its environment. Consider that coal,
a type of rock, consists of the compressed remains of plants from the
Carboniferous
period. Limestone, another rock, is formed from the residual shells of
shelled sea creatures. The earth’s atmosphere might not contain
so much oxygen had not living algae extracted energy from chemical compounds
in which the oxygen had been locked. The impact
of
life on the earth’s structure is huge.

The same is true of
human thought with respect to life as well as inert chemicals. The technologies
of agriculture have systematically bred strains
of plant life to increase food production for human beings. Domesticated
animals represent human intervention in the mix of animal life. With
respect to the earth’s land and mineral resources, we see obvious signs of
thoughtful human activity in all inhabited places. Humankind, with its
swollen population, is turning the entire surface of the earth into an
artificial habitat.

The natural sciences can and should
study such developments. Keep in mind, however, that the study of the
geosphere, biosphere, and noosphere
is but one
of the ways to understand existence. Aristotle advanced the theory of
the four causes: material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, and
final cause.
The natural sciences study the thing as it is. Let’s say that the
material and formal causes come closest to this form of knowledge.
The efficient and final causes, however, describe how something changes
in the course of time and, perhaps, where that change is ultimately headed.
This is history rather than natural science, containing also a smidgin
of cosmology to suggest finality.

If the beginning of the 20th century
saw scientists such as Vernadsky describe the nature of our triple
existence,
so the beginning of the 21st century
has seen the emergence of big history as a discipline of study. Building
upon the foundation of advanced science, big historians such as David
Christian have created a story to describe how our world has evolved
in the successive
waves of physical existence, life, and human culture. This is a new
type of creation story to nourish our modern understanding. The book,
History
of the Triple Existence, puts the focus of storytelling particularly
upon upon the "three chapters” of universal experience,
so to speak.

A
final note: As life and human civilization exist in a perilously small
domain on the earth’s land surface, so they could be destroyed
if man does not take care to preserve the environment
in which he lives. Physical existence is not at risk but the other two
types are. So let the story of big history be a cautionary tale to explain
how life and human thought are fragile and the critical
period of this history is now.